A Child Goes Missing Every 40 Seconds in America
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 10:05PM 
The Success of Amber Alerts in Recovering Babies
Special to Crime Report USA
Correspondent Derek Armstrong
With over 800,000 children reported missing in the U.S. each year, successful programs such as Amber Alert are vital to the effort to slow this appalling trend. 
Some of the many missing children on the FBI site. Please click the picture for details on these—and many more—missing childrenAmber Alerts Work
On November 24, an Amber Alert was issued on a child kidnapped from a car seat. On November 14, an Amber Alert in Rochester on a 2-year old resulted in a successful recovery of Baby Hailey.
Amber Alerts may not always have positive outcomes, but evidence of their effectiveness are reported every week. On November 24, an Amber Alert for 14-year-old Angela Rodriguez in San Jacinto County resulted in a detailed alert including description of a suspect. 18-year-old Joaquin Garcia, 6 foot tall Hispanic, was named as a suspect.
492 Children Recovered
Amber Alerts bring together the collective resources of media, journalists, law enforcement and the general public, usually resulting in immediate searches by hundreds of volunteers. Public awareness through media alerts results in many recoveries.
While the Department of Justice reports statistics reflecting hundreds of thousands of missing children, good news is quickly reported. 492 children have been recovered through Amber Alerts as of last year, the last year reported by the Office of Justice Programs.
“Amber Alert has helped to rescue hundreds of children from abductors and return them safely to their homes,” said the previous administrations Assistant Attorney General and National AMBER Alert Coordinator Jeffrey L. Sedgwick in October of 2008. The Amber Alert program launched in 1996, named in honor of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman of Texas who was abducted and found murdered.
Social Networking Sites Cited as a Risk Factor
While media and law-enforcers cooperate on Amber alerts, arguably the largest worldwide medium, the internet, has created more opportunities for criminals to prey on children.
On-line predators frequently find children and teens online, often luring them to dangerous situations. Law enforcers routinely investigate missing children by examining family computers for MySpace, Facebook and other social network histories. A well-known YouTube video explains step-by-step how predators can find, identify and target children, perhaps educating parents and children but also the very predators it warns against. Since many and social sites online are anonymous, children can be easily convinced they are chatting online with another child the same age, unaware it could be a sex offender.
Scary “Internet Safety” YouTube video… a must watch!
Not Just an American Problem
Human Trafficking, abductions and missing children is a global epidemic. China, perhaps more agressive than any other nation in prosecuting offenders executes many of the abductors. The Chinese Supreme Court reported in November 2009 that 1,714 people were punished for abbucting and trafficking in children in China. Impressively, Chinese police rescued 2,008 abducted children this year.
Resources
FBI Wanted / Missing Page
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
Missing Children Alerts
The Committee for Missing Children Inc. http://www.findthekids.com/
Child Find Canada
Derek Armstrong
Derek Armstrong is a journalist contributor to several magazines, newspapers, webzines and ezines. He has appeared as a reporter on HNN's Nancy Grace, the Larry King Show, MSNBC News and the Dr. Phil Show. He is chief crime correspondent for Crime Report USA and contributes to Films & Books Magazine, Advance Magazine, Canadian Money Magazine, Secure Net News, LINK Magazine and EDI Weekly.
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